This invention relates to a waist expander for a trouser finisher. The apparatus disclosed has particular application in facilities which manufacture trousers of various types, such as bluejeans. The disclosure in this application will be directed specifically to a machine intended to apply a finishing press to bluejeans at the end of the manufacturing process.
Prior art devices such as disclosed in the Remiarz U.S. Pat. No. 3,719,311 and McMillan U.S. Pat. No. 3,502,250 disclose waist expanders for trouser finishers which are relatively heavy and complex. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,502,250 a waist expander is shown which includes front and rear waist bucks which substantially overlap each other in the closed position in which the trouser are placed around the bucks. The front and rear waist bucks then move relatively away from each other to tighten the trousers. However, the provision for the overlapping arrangement of the front and rear waist bucks in the closed position (FIG. 9) results in the rear waist bucks being in a different plane than the front waist bucks when the waist expander is opened (FIG. 10). In consequence, the side chests themselves must define two corresponding planes in order to fit closely against the front and rear waist bucks. This structure is expensive to fabricate, complicated in operation and does not provide an optimal press finish to the trousers.
The Remiarz U.S. Pat. No. 3,719,311 discloses a different system wherein a fly positioning member is used to deform the front portion of a pair of trousers into a V-shaped recess, stretching the ramainder of the torso portion of the trousers around retaining members.
Experimentation with various waist expander designs has demonstrated that a simpler, more professional looking trouser finish is obtained by dressing and pressing the trousers with as little physical manipulation as possible and by placing the trousers in as simple a pressing configuration as possible. It has been determined that this is most easily accomplished by manipulating the trousers into a position wherein each side of the trousers from the waistband to the cuffs lies in a single plane.
Another problem not adequately addressed in the prior art is the frequent necessity in manufacturing plants to press numerous different sizes of trousers which may range from those intended for small children to sizes for heavy adults. In known prior art pressers, a single waist expander may accommodate a size range from 8 to 10 inches, for example, from 23 to 30 inches (58 to 76 cm.). To avoid having to change the waist bucks and side chests on the pressing machine, all of the trousers would be required to have waist sizes within this range. Otherwise, a larger or smaller waist expander and corresponding side chests would be installed on the machine, requiring expense and substantial loss of productive machine operation time. Since trousers are typically manufactured in at least four different size ranges, substantial cost is incurred in maintaining different size waist expanders for each machine and changing the waist expander from one size to another.